


Wings = Freedom

by AngeNoir



Series: Inktober 2018 [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Everybody Lives, Fred Weasley Lives, Gen, Injury Recovery, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 04:33:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16422482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: Fred lives.Fred lives, and Fred's insisting on doing stupid shit, and George is furious. He doesn't even know why.





	Wings = Freedom

“This is ridiculous,” George grumbled under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” George growled. “Nothing at all.”

Fred looked down at George - he was levitating in the air to work on the upper part of the harness, delicate fingers fiddling with the gears and metal pieces - and raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like something.”

George stepped around the side, ducking his head away from where Fred could see. “It’s nothing you’d listen to, now, is it?” he mumbled under his breath.

Normally, he’d be all for the crazy and harebrained ideas that they could come up with, create a new product and test it out without much care to the consequences.

But Fred had narrowly escaped death - by almost literally a hair - and this was the first week he was back up on his feet and back in the workshop. He should have been resting for a longer period of time, quite honestly, and George was antsy having him back around all the dangerous magic they handled on a daily basis.

Let alone this pretty hair-brained idea - and if  _he_  thought it was hair-brained, that said something about the idea.

“We figure out the kinks of the steering mechanism yet?” Fred asked absently.

George let out a rough sigh and stepped away. “I’m gonna take a break,” he growled.

Fred leaned out, mouth curved in a frown. “We barely started! We’ve been at this for, what, less than an hour?”

“Yeah, and I’m gonna take a break!” George snapped, striding out of their workshop and into the hallway that could take him forward to the rest of the shop or upstairs to their flat. He considered going into the shop, tidying up something there - but they weren’t open, and if he was moving around there people would see him and queue up as if it was close to opening time.

So he stormed upstairs, moving into the kitchen area. There weren’t many dishes in the sink - the two of them didn’t make much mess in the first place - but he figured he might as well do something productive. He hadn’t been very productive downstairs, after all.

Only a few minutes passed before the door opened to their apartment and then closed quietly. George didn’t move away from the sink, even as he heard the chair being pulled out from the table behind him.

“Is something wrong, Gred?” Fred said quietly.

George put the dish he was washing down in the sink and stared sightlessly at the wall behind the sink.

“I’m fine, George,” Fred said, voice still low but implacable, unyielding. “Even Mum’s stopped fussing.”

“Mum stopped fussing because you were getting cranky. She’s so set on making sure not to upset you she hasn’t visited once - when she was here,  _sleeping_  here, while you were still in bed,” George bit out, voice too tight, too  _loud_ , in the empty kitchen.

Fred didn’t say anything, and after more agonizing silence, George sucked in a painful breath. “You were - you  _died_. The mediwizard had to shock you to start your heart again. Your blood was  _everywhere_ on that floor - Percy was crying. I can’t - I couldn’t - “

A hand came, rested warmly on George’s shoulder. “We knew the dangers. Hell, we had always thought it was our jokes that would do us in. And I’m  _alive,_ George. I’m tired of pretending otherwise. These wings, we were thinking of them, before all this, but they’re - they’re  _freedom_ , George. They’re all that I thought of, lying in that bed feeling like I’d never get up again. We almost got them working. Let’s say we go down and work together?”

And George took a deep, shaky breath, set the dish down.

Followed his brother downstairs.


End file.
